Because I wan't it to last. Patching with a thin metal won't last as long. It has countless repairs on the bottom where it has been soldered and I would rather have a good patch welded on, or a new tank.

Not to say it can't be soldered but we will see whats what when more paint off.

Cheers,

Phill.

If you do a decent job of soldering, then a patch should last as long as you have the engine. We have patched numerous tanks up in the past with good results. Certainly much cheaper than buying or having to make a replacement.

G'day Phill.
Post a pic of the tank and lets have a look at it.
I like Miley Bob have patched a lot of tanks, they usually rust out along the bottom, some times I put a new strip of galv iron on the bottom and it is not normally seen.
If the hole is where it will be seen hammer an indent around the hole so the patch will be below the surface then an application of bog smoothed off will leave an undetectable repair.
Also if the tanked is badly dinged drill a hole, make a slide hammer and pull it out, patch the hole/s and bog it, small dings can be just be bogged.
AntiBriggs and Stratton had a post some time ago on soldering, there was a lot of good advice on the subject.
Here in NZ we don't have the range of parts available that you have so we tend to repair or make the parts needed.
A piece of advice I would hand out to anyone, and in particular to young people like yourself is to learn how to do repairs. You will be surprised what can achieved with basic tools.
The bottom line in this, attempt your own repairs If you stuff up you can still buy a tank and you have lost nothing.
Nothing ventured nothing gained
Here is a tank that has been repaired.
Regards,

Thanks for the advice everyone. I will give it some more thought when the rest of the paint is stripped off. I have soldering equiptment so might give that a go first. If that doesn't work, I know a welder who might be able to help.

That reminds me of the Lister D 2 head sheering set I nearly brought a year ago at Hobbs Parker at Ashford, It didn't sell and then some guy had it at the Kent Show and the fuel pipe became blocked, he found 3 little holes in the bottom. Heat should help the keys come out Phill, It it comes out okay, you won't need to get a new key made.

My Dad recons he has a blow torch somewhere at work so that will probably come in handy removing pulley and flywheel. I would appreciate some more advice on this as I know nowt' about it!

Hi Phil

These are definitely only my thoughts, but I have now managed to shift a few keys and flywheels...

Obviously, first you have to shift the key. Sometimes, they just won't come out but generally that's only if the engine if very rusty. I like to use a cold chisel, and I have lots of different sizes. You put the chisel across the face of the flywheel and use the taper to drive out the key. The problem is that the chisel wants to jump out from behind the key. To prevent this I use a G-clamp pulling the chisel in by clamping to the back of the shaft, then drive it through with a big hammer. If it's still fighting then now is the time to bring in the blow torch. Get the chisel clamped in first then heat it. Clamp the chisel in, right from the start, don't leave it until you've damaged the key head.

Once the key is out you are going to have to pull the flywheel or pulley. There's no point in heating it if you haven't worked out how you are going to pull. I'm lucky - I have a hydraulic puller, but its not essential. I've seen it done very effectively using chain and a car jack. Only once you have some serious tension on the item to move is it worth heating. Don't be in a hurry, it takes ages to soak the heat through a heavy casting - I've spent 20 minutes heating a pulley before now. Once it's started moving, keep going. It will happily bind back on again if you stop or let it cool.

Like I said - only my thoughts, and others will have their favourite methods.

By far the best tool for removing keys is a Key draw. this tool is widly used by agricultural fitters as combine harvesters still use gib keys on variable speed pulleys and it is designed for just this job.
It's a piece of flat bar tapered to a point at the end! it also has a leading edge that pulls the tool down onto the key.
I removed two flywheel keys from a lister CS this evening in seconds with mine. I've only ever had one key resist this tool on the Lister P but after building the key up with weld and filing a flat for the tool out it came.
They cost about £20 but they save a hell of a lot of messing about, trust me if you're playing with old engines you should'nt be without one of these.
any decent agricultural dealer should be able to supply you with one.